EU, EFCC train CSOs on anti-money laundering regulations

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has trained civil society organisations (CSOs) on Anti-Money Laundering Regulation frameworks and compliance in Adamawa State.

The training which was at the instance of the European Union Agents for Citizen-Driven Transformation (EU-ACT) at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) brainstormed on the issue to  poor compliance of CSOs to existing civil society regulations in Borno, Lagos, Enugu and other states.

Ali Abdullahi, the anti-grant agency representative, Department of Control Unit Against Money Laundering, SCUML, reiterated the commitment of the agency to monitoring and inspecting designated financial institutions in the state.

Chambers Umezulike, Program Officer, (EU-ACT) during his remark, said the training was reinforced by the outcome of the survey conducted were out of the 119 CSO responses, less than a third of the CSOs were compliant with the CAMA law, less than 10% of the CSOs were fully tax compliant and only 14% of the CSOs were SCUML compliant in the state and other eight states.

He said:”10 focal states to improve CSOs’ awareness of the important regulations (CAMA, Taxation, Anti-Terrorism and Money Laundering, and Pension) and how they affect their operation; capacitate them on how to become effective in their compliance obligation to these regulations; as well as improve their compliance to them.

“The training enabled EU-ACT CSO partners to gain in-depth knowledge of the requirements of the laws/regulations as well as receive continuous guidance on how to effectively and efficiently meet these requirements.”

Umezulike added that the program, implemented by the British Council, provided technical inputs as well as addressed any compliance issues in participant organisations.